Thursday, April 14, 2011

12-year-old girl finds loaded handgun in Wal-Mart bathroom

A 12-year-old girl found a loaded handgun on top of a toilet paper dispenser in the women's restroom at a Wal-Mart store in Winchester, Virginia. The girl gave the gun to her father, who is an employee at the store. He brought the .38-caliber Taurus revolver to the customer service desk. Fortunately, the gun was not discharged.
The owner of the gun, 49-year-old Tammy Renea Costello told police that her purse had tipped over while she was using the bathroom and the contents spilled over the floor. She put the contents back in her bag but forgot to take the gun. She did not notice that the handgun was missing until she was almost home. She went back to the store to look for it, but the store had already turned the gun over to the Sheriff.
Costello has been charged with one misdemeanor count of "recklessly leaving a loaded, unsecured firearm so as to endanger the life or limb or a child of less than 14 years old."
Ohh shoot.

Ohh Shoot highlights unintentional shootings. Some might refer to these as accidental shootings, but accident is too often interpreted as unavoidable. The shootings on this blog did not have to happen. Safe storage, better gun design, gun safety training are just some of the measures that could have prevented these tragedies.